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Engineers Make World Record In Solar Cell Efficiency

Our world needs innovative and cost-effective ways to convert the abundant solar energy into usable electricity. And Research in Solar Cells is advancing with leaps and bounds. Engineers from University of Toronto and King Abdullah University of Science& Technology (KAUST)  have successfully developed a solar cell with 37 percent increase in efficiency over the previous certified world record. Quantum Dots are the nano-sized semiconductors that use the entire solar spectrum to harvest electricity. Achieving a breakthrough in the development of colloidal quantum dot (CQD) films, that are inexpensive to create, a new way of fabrication of solar cells in mass quantities has been made possible.

To increase the efficiency, the engineers had to reduce the number of “traps” for electrons associated with poor surface quality. At the same time, the films have to be very dense and absorb as much light as possible. Therefore, they came up with a solution of doing “hybrid passivation”.

The KAUST team led by Aram Amassian made organic ligand exchange to achieve the densest film. “By introducing small chlorine atoms immediately after synthesizing the dots, we’re able to patch the previously unreachable nooks and crannies that lead to electron traps,” explains doctoral student and lead co-author Alex Ip. “We follow that by using short organic linkers to bind quantum dots in the film closer together. You can read more about work featured in a letter published in Nature Nanotechnology.